Let’s Talk Destiny 2 and Preorders

Well, we’ve certainly had some changes since I brought you to the battle against the Darkness, haven’t we? Destiny 2 is on its way, arriving September 6, 2017 for consoles and October 24, 2017 for PC. We’re seeing Destiny rake in more profit than publisher Activision’s favorite son, Call of Duty (Infinite Warfare, in this case.). We’re seeing Activision Blizzard’s Blizzard baby Overwatch continue to flatten all of its competition like the juggernaut it is – even after the one-year mark. We’ve even heard mystical tales of Destiny 2 having a story. So this all means preorder it now!

…no, it absolutely does not.

The Ugly

The extreme examples of why one should not preorder videogames are mostly familiar to the gaming audience: the fracas surrounding Batman: Arkham Knight (for PC) and Ride to Hell: Retribution (often called “Worst Video Game Ever”) are things many of you already know about. Some are less known due to when they happened. There was also the “Driv3rgate“scandal revolving around bribery from publisher Atari for good Driver 3 (Driv3r) reviews, and that information almost successfully being deleted from the internet.

Even Destiny’s own publisher Activision released the less than stellar Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 just two years ago. It was a buggy, rushed, unfinished mess of a product that was not only created thirteen years after the series’ previous installment, but was put up for sale on the very last day of Activision’s contract with Tony Hawk. ¿Cómo se dice cash grab?

The Bad

People have very commonly blamed Bungie for any problem that Destiny 1 and 2 has had. Those same people forget that Bungie has a history of excellent customer service. Their keeping an entire server running for weeks after official Halo 2 support shutdown was announced for just one group of players who refused to log off, and their regularly nerfing and buffing of vocally decried weapons and abilities for almost three years straight of Destiny 1 jump right to mind. I don’t know how many people have even noticed, let alone forgotten that Activision has a history of being much more interested in the profit than the quality of a game.

Two days after the initial launch of the Destiny 2 Beta, Reddit users were up in arms about the lack of balance between PvP play and PvE play. On day three, Bungie had published their text news update about how that had been fixed already (among other things). Days three through six of the Beta saw a continuing stream of these complaints, one that also spread prominently to YouTube despite Bungie’s news release. It seemed as though only the largest Destiny based YouTube channels and, ah, opinionated videogame news show The Know did any homework.

The moral of this story is beware of how much you don’t know when you stop asking questions. Also, don’t preorder videogames, ever. Good development or publishing companies will treat you well, and bad ones will treat you badly. Preordering games tells developers and publishers that you don’t care what quality a game is when its released; you’ll buy it before you even see. You’re publicly showing you favor efforts like the above examples every time you place an order. Don’t. Do. It.

The Good

It’s not all doom and gloom. Destiny 2 does look to be a very good game. Having played the beta, I can say that while gameplay feels slower than Destiny, all confirmed enhancements far outweigh that. Remember the biggest Destiny problem being its story? Over the course of the stories of only two missions in the Beta, I was intrigued. This was not true for Destiny’s story after two missions.

Don’t forget that Luke Smith was creative director of The Vault of Glass (fan favorite Destiny raid) and The Taken King (fan favorite expansion). Now he’s creative director of Destiny 2’s launch.

Or that Chris Pasetto, co-writer of the movie Air, and comic book Kill the Minotaur, lead designer of Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, is also on level design for this already gorgeous sequel.

David Samuel was on staff for sound effects design in D1, and has made his triumphant return for sound in Destiny 2. If he doesn’t get you to believe that people who care about this game are making it, nothing will.

The Victor

All Guardians will remember that purchasing a game on launch is pretty easy when they check previous release inventories. They will likewise recall that not just Steam, but Wal-Mart and more will bend over backwards to refund purchases. Shoot, if nothing else works for your schedule, good old Gamestop will still give you store credit.

If all goes well, we’ll take up arms together against the Red Legion’s invasion of Earth.

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